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My flat was built without central heating, and at some point someone decided it'd be a good idea to completely ruin a nice set of floorboards by carving a big concrete monstrosity down the middle of them to carry hot water pipes - pictures attached. The concrete is in a pretty poor state and...

I've been redecorating my new flat and have reached the point where I have to do something with the floorboards. They're about 70 years old and I'd assumed sanding them was going to be essential to get them looking decent, but I've been over them with a rough sponge and they've actually come out...

You were spot on - all I needed was a decent scrubber instead of a cheap scouring pad from the local corner shop! Reckon I'll have both rooms done by the weekend now - happy days!

I have been - steamer to heat the paint, then scrub at it with a scouring pad, then wipe it off with a sponge. That gets about 99% of the paint off easily, but the last 1% is stubborn.

Steaming then going at it with a sponge has worked pretty nicely! What I'm left with though is faint wisps of paint across the plaster, as in the photo attached. Do you think I'll be able to paint over these, or will the residual distemper still cause problems?

Thanks for the tips. I'll hire the kango and see how it gets on with the tiles that'll be hidden once units are in place, then make a call on whether I can make it look good. The picture makes it look darker than it is for some reason. It's an internal wall - it looks damp because I'd been...

I've been working on my kitchen and after taking some tiles off the wall discovered a second layer underneath. These seem to be fixed to the wall with several tons of that indestructible Roman concrete - chisel does nothing to it, hammer drill bounces off - so removing them is going to be very...

Thanks both! I've already been over the walls once with a steamer to get the wallpaper off, so they should be fine, but I'll give the hot water scrubbing a go first!

I do have a ROS, but I'm gonna be sanding the floorboards in a few weeks and don't want to wind up the neighbours too much just after moving in! I'll bring it out to tackle any stubborn holdouts once the rest of it is off.

Pretty sure it's late '40s/early '50s. The plaster is a speckled grey, like this: Would a steamer work? I'd never heard of distemper, but yeah, I think that might be what I'm dealing with here!

I've stripped some wallpaper from my living room to find there's a layer of paint underneath that's dusty (it comes away on your fingers when you touch it) but fiendishly difficult to get off the wall. I've tried using warm, soapy water and a sponge, then had a go at sanding. Both work, but very...

I bought my first flat in December, knowing it was going to need a lot of work doing to it. I've got no real DIY experience, but thought I'd have a go at anything which isn't likely to kill me or flood/blow up the flat. A couple of weeks ago I started on the kitchen, which I'd been putting off...